Note 2510 — BOOK IX. THE NATURAL HISTORY OF FISHES.

Lucerna. Probably, as Cuvier says, one of those numerous molluscs, or zoophytes, which give out a brilliant light, and perhaps the Pyrosoma of Péron. No period being found in the MSS. after the word “milvus”—“kite,” it was long thought that this passage applied to the sea-kite; and it is owing to this circumstance that we find the ichthyologists enumerating a Trigla lucerna. The correction, however, is approved of by Cuvier, who says that he has found none of the genus triglæ to give forth a light; except, indeed, when, like other fish, it begins to be putrid.